The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends Part 54

L. 12 ff. The mention of _Dumu-zi_, _i.e._ Tammuz or Adonis, goes back to about 3500 B.C., or earlier. Hymns to Tammuz in the dialect of the Sumerian language exist, dating from about 2000 years before Christ, the most noteworthy of these compositions at present known being that preserved in the Manchester Museum.

L. 27. Mutzu'u. It is doubtful whether this name is complete on the tablet where it occurs. Possibly Mutzuata, a name occurring on the Bronze Gates found by Mr. Ra.s.sam at Balawat, furnishes an indication as to the way in which it should be completed. (Knudtzon reads _Mut-ba?lu_, written for Mut-ba'la, possibly meaning "the man of his lord.")

L. 31. Yabitiri. The inscription referring to his early life is translated on pp. 284-285.

L. 37. For Addu-nirari, read Adad-nirari, the a.s.syrian form.

P. 280, line 4 and note. Nin-Urmuru (?) Knudtzon reads as Belit(= Ba'lat)-Ur-Ma?-Me. In a.s.syro-Babylonian this would probably be read _Belit-nei_, a name meaning "the lady of the lions."

P. 286, note 1. For the name Mut-zu'u, compare the note to p. 279, l. 27, above. Knudtzon's new translation differs somewhat from that given here.

P. 293, l. 26. Another Zimreda (to all appearance) is mentioned in an inscription in the British Museum. This text comes from Babylonia, and is possibly of an earlier date. It apparently refers to the affairs of the Babylonian princ.i.p.ality of Su?u and Maer.

P. 319, l. 14. Su?i and Maer are mentioned together in the doc.u.ment referred to above, note to p. 293, and in the inscription of ama-re-u?ur, governor of that district, published by Dr. Weissbach in his _Babylonische Miscellen_. This district lay, according to that scholar, somewhere near the point where the Habur runs into the Euphrates.

As the western boundary of this state is entirely unknown, the full value of Tiglath-pileser I.'s boast cannot be estimated, but the district ravaged must have been a considerable stretch of country.

P. 325. The inscription referring to Gazzani probably forms part of one of those in which the ruler asks the G.o.ds (generally ama and Hadad) for success against the countries which he intended to invade. Sargon of a.s.syria, Esarhaddon, and Aur-bani-apli (a.s.surbanipal) all had similar inscriptions composed for them. From the manner in which the text is written, however, it is probable that it antedates these.

P. 329, l. 4 from below. Instead of "advanced," another possible translation is "rose up."

P. 330, l. 3. Instead of Gilzau, Kirzau and several other readings are possible.

The "battle of Qarqara," as it is generally called, is ill.u.s.trated by strip I (old mark C) of the Bronze Gates of Shalmaneser II.(341) The scenes only represent the capture of the cities Parga, Ada, and Qarqara of Ur?ileni (= Ir?uleni) of the land of the Hamathites, there being no reference either to Ahab, or to his allies. The city of Qarqara was later on taken by Sargon (see p. 363).

P. 341, l. 4. Instead of _Persia_, read _Pahlav_ as the identification of Parsua (Hommel).

P. 343, l. 22. As the character translated "lady" means also "sister," it may in reality indicate the relationship of Sammu-ramat to Bel-tar?i-ili-ma.

P. 346, l. 22. Tiglath-pileser "III.," or "IV."

P. 347, l. 25. Sardurri of Ararat is the Sardaris (II.) of the Armenian cuneiform texts.

P. 349, l. 6. ?atarikka is also spelled with one _k_, as on pp. 344 and 345.

P. 374, l. 20. In Kammusu-nadbi we have an instance of the occurrence of the name of Chemosh, the national G.o.d of the Moabites. This name is also found in that of Kamuu-arra-u?ur, apparently a Babylonian, perhaps of Moabite origin (see the note to p. 466).

P. 376, l. 21. Urbi occurs as the name of a city or district in a Babylonian geographical list, from which we learn also that there was an "upper" and a "lower" Urbi. It is immediately followed by Pulug (see the note to p. 145).

L. 8. from below. Kallima-Sin is now read Kadaman-?arbe (or Muru).

P. 381, foot-note. According to Prof. W. Max Muller, _Orientalische Literaturzeitung_, Nov., 1902, Mer-en-Ptah and "the great sorcerer and high-priest of Memphis" were brothers, and the incident of the vision took place before Mer-en-Ptah's battle with the Libyans, when, as he himself states, he saw in a dream a figure like that of Ptah, who said to him "Take," giving him the sword, and "Put away from thee thy faintheartedness." Max Muller attributes the chronological error neither to Herodotus nor to the Egyptian scribes who supplied him with information, but to Hecataeus of Miletus, whose work Herodotus used-"an Egyptian would not have made such a chronological blunder." This, naturally, much diminishes the value of the extract as a parallel to the account of the destruction of Sennacherib's army before Jerusalem.

P. 384, l. 1 ff. The following is Nabonidus's account of the murder of Sennacherib and the events which led up to it, from the inscription published by the Rev. V. Scheil in the _Recueil des Travaux relatifs a la Philologie et a l'Archeologie egyptiennes et a.s.syriennes_, vol. XVIII., pp. 1 ff.:-

"He (this must be Sennacherib) went to Babylon, he laid its sanctuaries in ruin, he destroyed the reliefs,(342) the statues he overthrew. He took the hands of the prince, Merodach, and caused him to enter within Aur(343)-according to the anger of the G.o.d then he treated the land. The prince, Merodach, did not cease from his wrath-for 21 years he set up his seat within Aur. (In) later days a time arrived, the anger of the king of the G.o.ds, the lords, was then appeased. He remembered E-sagila and Babylon, the seat of his dominion. The king of Mesopotamia,(344) who during the anger of Merodach had accomplished the ruin of the land, the son born of his body slew him with the sword."

For the Babylonians, the a.s.syrian king was the instrument of Merodach's wrath.

P. 385. The British Museum "black stone" mentions Esarhaddon's elder brothers: "I, Esarhaddon, whom thou (O Merodach) hast called, in the a.s.sembly of my elder brothers, to restore those buildings" (_i.e._ the temples, etc., damaged by floods).

P. 393. Nabopola.s.sar, father of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, in an inscription found by the German expedition, and published by Dr. Weissbach in his _Babylonische Miscellen_, refers to the downfall of a.s.syria in the following words:-

"The a.s.syrian, who from remote days ruled all people, and with his heavy yoke oppressed the people of the land,(345) I, the weak, the humble, the worshipper of the lord of lords, by the mighty force of Nebo and Merodach, my lords, cut off their feet from the land of Akkad, and caused their yoke to be thrown off."

As the text is not of any great length, Nabopola.s.sar could not give details, but notwithstanding his humility, it is noteworthy that he takes all the credit to himself. The inscription is written on four cylinders from e-?atta-tila, the temple of Ninip in u-anna.

P. 399, l. 8. The spelling of the name of Nebuchadnezzar differs somewhat in the various inscriptions, but the meaning is always practically the same-"Nebo, protect the boundary" or "my boundary," according as the second component ends in _a_ or _i_. In Nabium (p. 398, l. 7 from below) we have an old form fully spelt out.

[Plate XVI.]

Emblems used by Esarhaddon, and carved on the upper surface of the black stone presented to the British Museum by Lord Aberdeen. It represents a divine tiara upon an altar, a priest, the sacred tree of the a.s.syrians, a bull, a mountain (?), a plough, a date-palm, and a rectangular object-perhaps the walls of a town. The same emblems, arranged in a circle, are found on the cylinders from Babylon inscribed with his architectural works in that city.

P. 400, l. 25. The name of at least one Nabu-zer-iddina (son of Ab[laa?], descendant of Irani) occurs in the contracts of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. This man, however, was a scribe, and there is no indication that he had ever been captain of the guard.

P. 403, ll. 7 ff. The penalty of death by fire, inflicted on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, receives ill.u.s.tration from the notes to p. 480.

P. 405, l. 21. The German excavations at Babylon have revealed the appearance of the gate of Itar as a plain opening in a wall of the city, covered with glazed brickwork, ornamented with bulls and dragons alternately, arranged in vertical rows, a decoration which is repeated in the thickness of the wall and in the inner recesses. (See Delitzsch's _Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses_, figures 25 and 26.) For the position of the gate, see the note to pp. 471, 472.

P. 406, ll. 2 and 3 from below. "The House of the Foundation of Heaven and earth" is the e-temen-ana-kia of p. 138.

P. 413, above. As an example of the sending of the statues of deities temporarily away from their shrines, see p. 278, where mention is made of the image of Itar of Nineveh, sent to Egypt by king Duratta.

P. 415, l. 23, and four following pages. Ugbaru and Gubaru are generally regarded as two forms of the name Gobryas, and though this seems certain, there is just the possibility, that they are the names of two different persons.

P. 425, l. 10 from below. The tablet mentioning Zeru-Babili son of Muteri?u exists in two examples, one being in the British Museum, and the other (which has an Aramaic docket) in the possession of Mr. Joseph Offord. It is translated in the _Quarterly Statement_ of the Palestine Exploration Fund, July, 1900, pp. 264 ff.

P. 439, l. 26. The _raqundu_ was probably a weaver's or embroiderer's tool, returned in exchange for that lent.

P. 446, ll. 8 ff. from below. The inscription referred to is published in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_, Dec. 1895, pp.

278, 279.

P. 453, ll. 6-8. Prof. Campbell Thompson translates: "I send this as a _trouble_ to my brothers"-_i.e._ "I am sorry to trouble you, but I hope you will do what is right."

P. 457, l. 19. Arad-Mede may also be read Arad-Gula. In the next line ubabu-sara' may be umabu-sara'.

P. 466 (the sale of an Egyptian slave). Another text of the same nature, dated in the same year, is in the De Clercq collection. It refers to the sale of an Egyptian slave-woman named Tamunu ("she of Amon"). The text is published, with a translation by Prof. J. Oppert, in the second vol. of the _Catalogue_.(346) The slave in question belonged to Itti-Nabu-bala?u, son of Kamuu-arra-u?ur, "Chemosh, protect the king"-probably indicating that the bearer of the name was of Moabite origin, or the introduction of the G.o.d of the Moabites into Babylonia.

Pp. 471-472. The German excavations have already settled many doubtful points concerning the topography of Babylon, and it is certain that, after the destruction of the city, exaggerated accounts of its enormous extent obtained credence. According to Delitzsch, it was not larger than Munich or Dresden, though even that is a good size for an Oriental city. The princ.i.p.al ruins are on the right bank of the river, and included Babil ("Probably a palace"), to protect which the city-wall makes a considerable angle on the north. From this point the wall continues its course in a south-easterly direction for a considerable distance, and turning at a right angle at its farthest point from the river, runs back in a south-westerly direction to meet it again. About a mile south of Babil the visitor comes upon the great ruin known as the Kasr, where stood Nebuchadnezzar's second palace. On the eastern side of this is the "procession-street" of the G.o.d Merodach, from which came some very fine reliefs of "the Lion of Babylon," beautifully wrought in coloured and enamelled brick. The temple of the G.o.ddess Nin-ma? lay to the south-east of the southern end of the street, and between the two was situated the celebrated Gate of Itar, adorned with lions and strangely-formed dragons, already referred to (p. 551). Proceeding to the south-west from the temple of Nin-ma?, we reach Nebuchadnezzar's earlier palace, a very extensive structure, with a s.p.a.cious court-yard and a large hall used as a throne-room, on the south side of which the recess for the throne is still visible. The palace of his father Nabopola.s.sar, which adjoined it on the west, has not yet been excavated. About half-a-mile to the south of these palaces lie the ruins of the great temple of Belus, in the mound now known as Amran-ibn-Ali (see pp. 137 ff., 476, 480, ff.). The German excavations have thus confirmed the identification of the site, as indicated in the _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, vol. I., pl. 48, no. 9 (published in 1861). This text, which is a brick-inscription of Esarhaddon, reads as follows:-

"Esarhaddon, king of a.s.syria, king of Babylon, has caused the brickwork of e-saggil, e-temen-ana-kia, to be built anew for Merodach his lord."

According to the German plan, the portion of the city on the west of the river was of exceedingly small extent.

Artists will soon be able to depict the scenery of Babylon as a background for pictures of this world-renowned city with considerable accuracy.

P. 478, l. 24. An alternative rendering instead of "sculptor," is "seal-engraver."